


Lore

by Reera the Red (nimmieamee)



Series: Notes from the Wizarding World [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Fairy Tales, Mirror of Erised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:45:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 6,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimmieamee/pseuds/Reera%20the%20Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stories you will <i>not</i> find in Beedle the Bard. But some of them may seem familiar anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Dungeon Version (Cinderella)

Granger, who knows everything, could tell you that nearly every single culture has a Cinderella story; for example, the goblins have the story of clever Graspclaw who bargained her way to freedom, and the Eastern Veela have Allochka and her golden-feather gown, and late in life Beedle himself penned many a story about a pretty witch in dire straits, and of course the Muggles have ten million versions of their own.

But even Granger doesn’t know the version they tell down in the dungeons, where if you are overlooked, abused, unappreciated, mistreated, or worse, there is still a way out. So this girl —pure-blood, of course— had her father marry some half-breed. And then what was rightfully hers was taken away, y’see?

And so she had to do something about it.

And naturally if you bring something stupid into the story like a fairy godmother or a pumpkin carriage (fairies are for mocking, and pumpkins are for juicing, yeah?), you’ll get laughed right out of the dungeons. No Slytherin worth his or her salt is going to wait around for a fairy godmother.

You can tell a lot about people by how they tell a story.


	2. The Bargain (Rumpelstiltskin)

You’ve heard the tale of that clever, long-fingered goblin and the miller’s daughter, and I’m sure you wonder why wizards and witches do not tell it. It is because they prefer not to tell stories of the goblins winning. They believe themselves so superior that such tales are incomprehensible to them.

Oh? You do not think the goblin won? But he did. He did. If the story had ended with the miller’s daughter then wizards and witches would tell it gladly, for it would be a story then of how silly goblins are, how they are gold-obsessed and sneaky and not half as clever as they think.

But wizards and witches, unlike Muggles, recall what happened to the child when she came of age. When her mother would have traded her away to any passing well-born son, would have used her as yet another bargaining piece, had long ceased to see her as a treasure worth keeping and preserving, and now longed to know what might be obtained with such a lovely daughter as currency. But no man will marry a statuette, no matter how beautiful or golden. And so the child was spirited away to a dark and tranquil goblins’ vault where she could last an eternity, deathless and cherished. To the goblins, this is not only merciful. It is the only way to win, when wizards and witches insist on not keeping their bargains.

Goblins have their own magic. And when the goblin bargained for the child he wove a spell to ensure that such a child might be born — he created her. And goblins create not with flesh and blood, but with silver and gold.

Remember that to a goblin, wizards’ and witches’ bargains mean nothing. The rightful and true master of any object is the maker, not the purchaser.


	3. Fair Folk

The Muggles once told tales of women in green kirtles; of men with star crowns and silver serpents around their necks; of fair people living hidden inside hills, between stones, in towers on the other side of the sun, or where the waterfall flows in reverse. And of children. Children are always at the center of the stories. Beautiful children. Special. Capable of enchanting even a queen with a star on her brow. Children who walked widdershins around the church like Childe Rowland’s sister. Children warned not to drink the fairy drinks of fire, or the curious enchanted elves’ food. Children warned not to talk to anyone, not to help anyone, not even the animals. Children exchanged for peat moss.

For once there were those among us who had a very different attitude towards Muggle-borns. It was not that they did not belong. It was that they belonged with  _us_.

They say that once wizards and Muggles lived side by side in harmony. But it is wizards and witches who say that. The Muggles — if only they could remember — might tell a very different story.


	4. Carabas (Puss In Boots)

The Marquis, though most famous in the Wizarding World for his fierce support of Muggle-borns and centaurs, and for his meritocratic beliefs, also had one or two peculiar habits which resulted in his imprisonment multiple times under the then-new Statute of Secrecy.

He would wander the countryside searching for low-born, magic-less youths who were pure of heart and sound in mind, generous young persons who might gift one a pair of boots to keep one’s wand in, even when they themselves had nothing. In a more just society, the Marquis believed that such charitable individuals might have been kings and queens instead of common Muggle peasants, and so he set about effecting just that.

In his Animagus form (a cat) to better avoid detection, the Marquis accomplished marvels. There a slain ogre. Here a castle full of gold. And again and again, a kindhearted, unselfish young man or woman elevated to nobility. Seventy times did he manage this, but inevitably he was caught, for he always allowed his young proteges to take his name.

"Simply declare yourself the Marquis of Carabas," he would say, knowing full-well that no such person existed in the Muggle world. Though well-born himself, the Marquis had no use for titles and names. He gave his own away gladly, though it was a powerful and fantastical name and would have brought him power among his own people. It was of course nonsensical to the Muggles, merely a name for a clever phantom or an old trickster in a story.


	5. No Reward (Trusty John)

They shared the name John. Not like John who had his head cut off. Not like John who drank blood and wrote a gospel. Like Trusty John. Trusty John, who the first John’s mother had discovered in Mr. Lang’s books, which she kept in a battered trunk and dragged from place to place. Trusty John, who the second John’s mother had found in  _Warning Tales For Young Wizards and Witches_ , which she proudly displayed on the shelf and brought out each night before bedtime _._

But their friends, not-Johns, both, had never heard the story. So it came out in a great series of interruptions, as both tale-tellers preferred their own version, and as the audience was a rather unruly lot, and prone to cutting in anyway. Was Trusty John a servant, or a royal mage? Did it matter, when he’d been entrusted with the prince of the realm, by sacred order of the king?

“No, it wasn’t a king,” said the second John. “It was simply a normal wizard.”

Either way, there was Trusty John, caring for the child, teaching him to protect himself, and helping him win the hand of the princess.

“Princess?” said the second John. “No princess! The story never had a princess.”

“Bloody good, too,” said the audience. “It’s taking long enough to tell it.”

The first John said, “Trusty John met three ravens. Oh, fine, sure. Animagi. We can call them Animagi. No, no, I’m sure in your version they are Animagi, but obviously they aren’t called that in the Muggle version. Anyway, Trusty John overhears— No? the ravens tell him directly? Fine.  _Directly_ , for they’re his old housemates. Hufflepuffs.”

Jeering from the audience.

“The Animagi tell him that something will harm the prince. They tell him how to stop it. He has to do strange things to stop it. Things that will make the prince mistrust him. Fine. Ancient spells. He has to do ancient spells. He has to kill the prince’s horse, and he can’t tell the prince why, or he’ll be turned to stone up to his knees. No, the prince cannot just replace the horse with a bloody broomstick. Anyway, Trusty John has to spill all the prince’s wine – fine, firewhiskey – and he can’t tell the prince why, or he’ll be turned to stone up to his waist. And he has to draw blood from the princess – alright. Sure. There’s no princess. From  _himself_. And he can’t explain why, or he’ll be turned to stone all completely.

“Well, the prince is fine with the dead horse. The prince is fine with the wine. But he draws the line at Trusty John cutting himself up. He asks John why. He tells John he is now mistrusted unless he explains. That he will be put to death unless he answers to his prince, his friend. So John tells him. And is turned to stone, completely. And the prince – now a king, a grown man – realizes how stupid he’s been, not to trust his lowborn, loyal mate. But then the prince learns that if he sacrifices his own children and rubs their blood on John, John will come back to life.”

“Dark Magic!” cried the audience, and the second John concurred.

The first John said, “So the king does it, and John comes back. And then, to reward the king for being loyal in turn, his children also come back to life. The end. Yes. No?  _What_? The children stay dead in your version? John turns himself back to stone to bring them back, because that’s how loyal he is? Because he knows it’s either him, or the babies?

“That’s stupid. If  _that’_ s the story, then there’s no point to loyalty at all. I mean, I suppose loyalty for its own sake. But—Hm. No. No, I suppose that  _is_  the moral. Sometimes there is no reward.”

“Too bad you got the soppy revisionist version, Remus John,” said Sirius not-John, the audience.

“And Peter John’s so helpfully reminds us not to trust in Dark Magic,” said James, also not-John, also the audience. “I like Peter John’s better. Yours teaches us – what? To write in lots of extraneous princesses?”

“Point to the other John, then. I’ll give it to him gladly. Because sometimes there  _is_ no reward, but you have to be loyal anyway. Even if it means your life. Even if it swallows you up and turns you to stone. Because it’s the right thing to do. And the magical version is truer to life, I suppose.”

“Yes, yes,” Peter said, a bit nervously. “That’s how I always took it. In life. I mean. Sometimes, with loyalty. There is no…”

Peter thought of the face, frozen in fear, the creeping stillness of the stone traveling up its limbs, the wailing of the now-living children, and the horrible death at the end of the bedtime story. He said: “You don’t get anything for loyalty. There is no reward.”


	6. Not Applicable (Beauty & the Beast)

He came very suddenly upon a schoolmate he always tried to avoid. And so very cheerful and forward was this person, so much a go-getter, so completely devoted to every club (Gobstones! The Mago-photography journal! The Arithmantic Athletes!), so utterly and completely not worth speaking to; that he swiveled and decidedly ignored the way his name was shouted, and tried to find some small alcove or some rude mass of persons to disappear into (oh,  _where_  were Diagon’s masses of rushing goblins and half-giants when one actually  _wanted_  them?), but to no avail.

He was cornered. The most atrociously boring, entirely embarrassing conversation ensued. First very pointed questions of  _what_  was he doing this summer, and  _who_ was his cousin seeing, and  _where_ had he found his tutor for N.E.W.Ts, and  _why_  did he think old Slug was so selective, and so on and so on.

Oh, as if it could get any worse.

But it did. On and on droned the schoolmate, until, horrors, there they were in broad daylight discussing  _just_  the most marvelous book of Muggle stories this sad little person had picked up, and  _oh_ didn’t he think they could learn something from the Muggles, if they tried? Didn’t he? He’d always seemed so much more open than his friends (so the schoolmate thought), so much more forgiving than his family, and so very polite. And, if he chanced to open his mind just a bit more, he might even like some of this neat new Muggle knowledge. Take the tale of the maiden who fell in love with a beast. A terrible creature, a base being borne of distorted arrogance, and yet—

And yet it was redeemed.  _W_ _asn’t_  that the nice thing about Muggle stories? Muggles loved redemption. And so when the beast fell in love with the maiden—

"I think that’s disgusting, actually, Purkiss," he coolly told the schoolmate, putting special emphasis on her rather low and common name, "Loving some half-breed monster? Caring for something non-human? What sort of redemption is there in that?"

Having delivered the cut at last, he swept away. And he paused to look back at stunned, stupid Purkiss only once. And then, after that, Regulus didn’t think about what she’d said for another year, at least.


	7. Not Exactly Edward Cullen (Muggle Romance Novels)

The beautiful witch was mad for Muggle romance novels, so she very happily followed the vampire to his lair. This was a dark and crumbling castle high on an isolated hill charmed against Apparition, a perfectly-laid trap decorated in the most morose manner possible; but so helpfully laid out, she thought, with romantic candelabra for mood lighting and also many convenient velvet-covered antique beds.

"What," she began, in what she hoped was a breathy and titillating and feminine voice, "Are you planning to do to me, you  _fiend_?”

"Tell me," said the vampire, pinning her menacingly on the bed, baring his fangs and his chest, with the dim light of the lamps setting his alabaster skin to best effect, "What do you think of paragraph twelve of the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans?"

"…what?" said the witch.

"Because I find that Ministry regulations are often promulgated by those with little interest in cultural competence, and it’s a real problem," said the vampire. "Never mind how preconceptions color the terms on which our people deal—"

"Wait a minute—" the witch said.

"—and canny undersecretaries use media outlets like the  _Prophet_  to make the situation worse,” said the vampire.

"Oh, not again. Kill me now," muttered the witch.

But the vampire hardly thought that was the way to achieve interspecies cooperation, and privately felt that he could never bind himself for eternity to someone with no interest in current affairs. When he finally met the right girl, the girl he’d spend millennia with, the girl he’d transform into a fiend, into one of the living dead — she’d care about failures in public policy. She’d concern herself with injustices wrought by the MLE. She’d campaign to fix the flaws inherent in the structure of the Wizengamot. And she was out there, he was sure of it.

“ _Every time_ ,” said the witch. 


	8. Towers (Rapunzel)

For a long, a very long time, Muggles have been fascinated by the thought of young women trapped in towers. Brittle, fair creatures, their golden hair a stairway to some other plane, their sad eyes pleading for rescue, their thin wrists waving uselessly down at the ground: Help me! Help me, for I’m trapped! I seem to be so far above you, I seem so lovely as to be a goddess from another realm, but it’s a trick. It’s artifice. Oh, spend your blood to free me, sacrifice your eyes so that you might not be blinded by my loveliness, slay dragons and climb my golden stair and then tumble down to your muddy land for rebirth, and if you do all this I will descend, and I will be with you, and we will be together!

And perhaps, once, there really was a girl in a tower, and perhaps some Muggle, coming up and spying her in the window, asked her what he could do for her, what cruel parent had forced her there. And perhaps she looked at him with sad eyes and said he could do nothing, for she was the daughter of a witch, she was a child of magic, and so she would be forever above him.

The Muggles have written a thousand different endings to bring the girl down from the tower throughout the years, as they have spent blood to free themselves from old towers of caste and greed, as they have slain a million dragons with new inventions and new tricks; as they have tried to climb, again and again, a thousand different ideologies, stairs to the stars, only to tumble back down into mud to try all over again. As they have grown.

But the sons and daughters of witches and wizards are taught to hold themselves apart. They are trapped in dungeons, behind hidden doors, and — yes — in towers, where they learn to despise and fear Muggles, where they learn that Muggles are beneath them.

They have never heard this rescue story. They would not understand it even if they did. They peer from the clouded panes of their old houses at the filthy Mudblood (oh, what would they say if they were to learn that mud can be rebirth?), the blood-traitor climbing down to greet him, and they are afraid. They are trapped. They trap themselves.


	9. The Story of Owl

Here is the story that most have forgotten, that Kendra told her sons, though only her daughter, hidden in the corner, was listening at the time; that old Isla told Alphard when he tracked her down before her death; that lines of Duffers have passed down over the years, while the other houses have let it fall away; and that Hermione once found on a crumbling bit of parchment in the darkest corner of the Restricted Section (though she did not have time to decipher it fully).

The first wizard was Saynday, say some, though his name matters little. He is called many peculiar things all around the world. And his power was the power that all wizards and witches have and do not always remember that they have, which is the power to dance between clarity and confusion, by turning empty words to powerful reality. So Saynday cherished his words. He needed some loyal and clever being to help spread them all throughout the world, and in particular to help spread them to the first witch, who likewise has ten million names and who he had spied once, beautiful and dark-skinned with flashing eyes, gazing at him from her winter home on the sea foam. But now, alas, she was guarded from his gaze, in her jealous parents’ summer palace at the center of the sun.

So a great contest was held, to find who was the most loyal and courageous and cunning and clever creature in the world, who might carry the first wizard’s love missives to the very first witch. And the eagle, the buzzard, the crow, and the raven all failed on the first try, for they could fly far, but not to the center of the sun. And at last only magical beasts — the great dragon, the great thestral, and the great phoenix — remained. And to each of these Saynday gave a different proposal of marriage, and bade them to bring it to the beautiful witch in her sun palace.

Dragon flew half-way, until he could see the handmaidens of the sun witch gazing at him with their eyes that were stars. At that point he heard some twitting near his ear, and it was the very common and thoroughly un-magical Owl. 

"What do you want?" asked Dragon.

"Oh dear," said Owl, "Oh dear. Oh dear. The witch of the sun will never look at you. You are all fleshy and pink and disgusting, with that webbing between your wings. Look, see how even the star-handmaidens turn away and flicker out their eyes to avoid seeing you. Quick, let me hold that missive for you, and you can use your magic to give yourself lovely bright scales.”

So Dragon did as he was told, but when he was done Owl had sprung ahead with the missive, and he could not follow, for his scales were heavy and slowed him down.

Great Thestral, large and black, made it three quarters of the way, to where the first witch’s moon gatekeeper stood, and there Owl caught up with him.

"Oh, he will not let you through!" screeched Owl, "For look, the Phoenix who came before you has tricked him, and so he is furious. You will have to turn yourself invisible. Hand me your marriage proposal, and I will hold it while you do so."

So Thestral did just that. But when it was done Owl would not give the missive back, no matter how furiously he stomped his hooves.

"What is that stomping?" asked the gatekeeper.

"Take this knife and plunge it into your heart, and you will see," said Owl. And the gatekeeper did so (this is why the sun and stars are hot and living, but the moon is cool dead rock), and caught sight of Thestral, but by then it was too late, for Owl had vanished through the gate.

Owl caught up with Phoenix just as he was circling the palace. 

"Oh dear," said Owl, "Oh dear, oh dear. Look at you, terrified of a few sunny flames. The witch of the sun is laughing at you, I think. Here you fly, nervous and terrified of being burnt, when you are such a powerful magical being yourself and can surely stand a few flames. Fly right in!"

"I worry, dear Owl, that my missive will burn up."

"Oh, never mind that," said Owl, "I’ll hold it, and you can go in and fetch the witch of the sun."

So Phoenix did just that, but of course he never reached her. The sun burned him up to a crisp, and, pitifully, he crawled out and cursed Owl with his last dying breaths.

But Owl felt he did not deserve curses, for he knew perfectly well that the witch of the sun was a kind being. She would not let any creature die at her doorstep. And so it was. Out she came, and when she saw Phoenix she cried over him and gave him back his life, and gave him besides that the power to revive himself, to be born from his own death, should he ever need it.

So the great dragon and the great thestral and the great phoenix became more magical than they yet were for their troubles. But it was clever, ordinary Owl who gave the sun witch her proposals, and who subsequently flew back with her acceptance.

And this is why common owls are trusted with our words. 


	10. Gryffindors Bearing Gifts (Sleeping Beauty)

There were three gifts the boy received, one from each of the three people who were expected to watch over his cradle and bless him. First a flying broomstick from his godfather, and this was shattered when the green light struck, reduced to a million fragments, incapable of being put back together again. Next an enchanted ball from a plump, rodentlike man; and the ball snapped back against the child one day and hurt him, and his parents, gazing at it in wide-eyed surprise, hurriedly Banished it, for they would not have let it in the house if they’d known it was going to do that.

But Remus only gave him a bear, a kind sort of animal with a human smile sewn on. And the boy loved it, but it was abandoned after that wicked uninvited being descended on his cradle to curse him. It was left there, its threads slowly fraying with the passage of time, alone.


	11. Muggle-Born (Sleeping Beauty II)

Once upon a time there was a beautiful witch who deigned to help some well-born Muggles, believing that she could forge an alliance with them. And yet the Muggles were — as Muggles often are — so ungrateful, so grasping and greedy and careless and slow-witted, that they forgot her soon after. Although she awaited the birth of their child with joy, they neglected to invite her to the christening, and in fact sought to keep her from it, for she was grand and powerful and they were low and jealous. And so she cast a spell: if their child was as slow-witted and heedless as they were, then her fate would be an enchanted slumber, so that she might never grow into the greedy jealousy of her forbears. The child was careless and stupid, as Muggle-borns usually are, and slept until she died.

Oh. That is not how  _you_  tell the tale? How funny. Well, you would tell it differently, wouldn’t you.


	12. Scaramouche (Muggle Romance Novels II)

Ah, yes. The popular, Witch Weekly-affiliated  _Scaramouche_  novellas. Featuring beautiful young witches who have no idea how beautiful they are. Secret inheritances. Tragic upbringings. Dead parents by the cauldronful. And chiseled young men who swear, “No, no, my darling! You must never love me, for I’ve a terrible secret. No, it’s not my piles of money. No, it’s not my Quidditch prowess and my vast reserves of magical power. No, it’s not the fact that I clearly have some kind personality disorder, given my tendency to become enflamed with masculine ardor and rage whenever I think of your other suitors. It’s darker than that, my darling! _Much_  darker.”

What? No, don’t be silly. Of course they aren’t werewolves or vampires. Sweet Helga, what a notion. Imagine being in love with a werewolf or a vampire. Let’s save that for the racy trash they peddle on Knockturn corners.

No, silly,  _Scaramouche_  heroes are often half-bloods (or, more commonly, pure-bloods who mistakenly believe themselves to be half-bloods until the truth of their ancestry is revealed). Perfectly marriageable fellows, really. Who happen to enjoy handsome grimacing, hidden inner pain, shirtlessness, and sex in the bath.


	13. Three Brothers

Their father worshipped the Dark Arts, which were so useful to one at times, gave one control, made one feel so big; and which at other times were far too exacting, demanding blood and sleepless nights, leaving one hollow-cheeked and paranoid, emptying one’s life. After a time, he too became mercurial in this fashion. In the morning he would appear charming; loving, even. Flowers would be summoned to his lady’s plate. Gifts would find their way into the boys’ pockets. He would invite them all on family outings, would wrap the youngest in his cloak against the cold, would take them into town to see the puppet show. He would converse kindly with his neighbors, even the Muggle ones, as any pillar of the community does.

But by nightfall something would have gone wrong. His wife had not been quick enough to close the gate behind them. One of the older boys had made eyes at some girl who seemed very slatternly. Or else the youngest had dropped his gift by ungrateful and careless accident. And the wizard was so hollow-cheeked by then, had had such little sleep, was so frayed and desperate for control and feeling so very emptied, that he would become very cruel with them all, sapping away all their strength and happiness just as he’d sapped away his own. And so this was what the boys learned. Not to grow and give and thrive and live. Only to sap, to take, to kill the happiness of others like living curses, like Boggarts in human form, to poison those moments which make life worth living, which make life more than hollow-cheeked and fearful existence. 

They railed against it. How could they not? They did not want to become their father. But the eldest, in time, did just that. Tired of seeing his mother mistreated, he sought to become so powerful and deadly to others that none would dare harm her in his presence. And so he became a hollow-cheeked, angry bully like his father, and in short time an even bigger bully struck him down.

The second son lasted longer. He struck out on his own, married one of those young women his father so disapproved of, and thumbed his nose at the old man’s upset. But when his new bride became sick, he was consumed by a need to control her blood and the spread of her cancerous tissues and even the ebb and flow of her soul. And so he, too, became hollow-cheeked and paranoid.

When the time came for the youngest to inherit anything, there was nothing left but all that empty family anger, and his father’s cloak. And, tossing and turning one night, he realized that he could build nothing for his own child unless he rid himself of the former. But this would be next to impossible. It bubbled up inside him, guided his thoughts, demanded things of him, and — worst of all — made him feel big. Righteous. A living curse.

So he charmed the cloak to make him nonexistent, gone, vanished, a humble and pathetic bit of empty space. And he gave it to his son, and he said, “Throw this on me when I’m at my worst, and tell me not to come out until I’m fit to live again.” That was exactly what his son did, and it saved them both. It let them live.

(His son later told the story to Beedle. Beedle made it a prettier, neater tale. More palatable. But many pretty tales begin with ugly, common family tragedy.)


	14. Oh Grandmother What Big Teeth (Red Riding Hood)

There was a man with a little daughter whom he loved and a golden-haired sweetheart who adored him, and although his principles were perhaps a bit twisted and odd, and his obsession with strength made the sweetheart’s family wary of accepting his proposal, it must be said that someone who loves cannot be capable of evil. This is the lesson we are all taught, and so it must be true.

And on one day in which the three were to meet in the forest — the man, his sweetheart, and his daughter — they each, coming by separate ways, met an old beggar woman with a lupine grin, and the old woman asked each of them in turn if they should like to become very strong, strong enough to keep each other together always, to form a family, to rip wary outsiders and interlopers to shreds.

"No," said the little daughter, "For we already are a family, and I’ve faith that we will stay together, and I’ve no desire to rip outsiders to shreds."

"No," said the golden-haired sweetheart, "For we love each other dearly, and anyone who loves will forever be near their beloved if they truly wish it, and also such people, with love in their hearts, are not truly capable of ripping others to shreds."

But the man thought of the weak mother who had died and abandoned his little daughter, and of the wary people who would keep him from his sweetheart, and because he loved them both so much he was determined to accept what the old woman offered him.

When the sun had set and the three had found each other in the center of the forest, the old woman reappeared by his sweetheart’s side, looking stronger and healthier than before, and turned her lupine grin on the moon. And on that night the little daughter and the golden-haired sweetheart perished. But it was not, the man thought, because he’d made the wrong choice.

"I did nothing wrong," he told himself later, looking at the blood-stained ground and the tendrils of golden hair and bits of scalp caught in the trees, "I loved them. I loved them. And if they had been as loving as I, and as strong, and as worthy, they would have lived."

"I do agree, Fenrir," said the old woman.


	15. Bedtime Story (Snow White)

Oh, my darlings, let me tell you the proper version. Once, long before the days of Slytherin, there was a witch who lived like a shining star all surrounded by squat, ugly, and sightless Muggles; and so we will call her Pure-As-Stars. Think her up in your mind’s eye. She was the most beautiful creature you can imagine. Pure-As-Stars searched far and low for a proper kind of wizard, and found him. They had a daughter. We will call the daughter Pure-As-Snow. Well, one day Pure-As-Stars decided to take Pure-As-Snow to the market, which was crawling with Muggles, for in those times wizards and witches had no choice but to mix with all kinds of backwards persons. And in the market they passed over all of the rubbish that these creatures pressed on them, and found instead a magical mirror that was far too precious for its filthy surroundings. So, Obliviating the Muggles, they seized the mirror and took it home.

Soon enough, Pure-As-Stars found that the mirror showed them everything they could possibly wish to know.  _How should we ward the house, so that these creeping and ugly folk living around us might leave us be?_ asked Pure-As-Stars. And the mirror revealed a way.  _How might I bend the wild elves to my whims and so make a perfect servant for dear Snow?_ asked Pure-As-Stars. And the mirror showed her how.  _Which spells might I use to_   _defeat the hideous hags and giants which torment us?_  asked Pure-As-Stars. And there, in the mirror, was the answer she desired.

So from far and wide there came ugly, grasping Muggles to look inside Pure-As-Stars’s magic mirror for answers to their trifling problems, and to praise her and marvel at her great beauty, so that after some time when Pure-As-Stars would ask the mirror,  _Where might I find the most beautiful and extraordinary witch in all the world?_  the mirror would only show her her own reflection. However, because it was a magic mirror and meant to reveal all the answers one might covet, when Pure-As-Snow came of age, the mirror’s answer to this last question changed, and it began to show Pure-As-Stars’s pretty daughter instead. Startled and angry, Pure-As-Stars began to hate her child, who was nothing like all the ugly creatures around them, and who had instead grown to surpass her lovely mother. 

Knowing she was no longer the most exceptional being in the land, Pure-As-Stars took to bed, ill and jealous, and when her husband came and begged for a solution to cure her, Pure-As-Stars said that the only thing to cure her would be to eat the liver of Pure-As-Snow.

Being a proper wizard, canny and clever, her husband hid Pure-As-Snow and killed a wild wolfman for his liver, and when Pure-As-Stars ate it she recovered for a time. But the ugly wolf heart was no permanent cure, and when she looked in the mirror and asked who the loveliest witch in the world was, it again showed her Pure-As-Snow. So again Pure-As-Stars fell ill with hatred, and demanded the stomach of Pure-As-Snow. Her husband went out and killed a troll and delivered its stomach to her, but this paltry offering again failed, and still the mirror showed Pure-As-Snow. So Pure-As-Stars asked for the heart of Pure-As-Snow. And her husband killed a Muggle and brought her the heart, but this would not do either, and Pure-As-Stars resolved to do the task herself. Pure-As-Stars brewed a poison brew and set out to find her daughter with the aid of the mirror, and so to eliminate the competition.

But when she found her, Pure-As-Snow begged to live. “How can I let you live?” said Pure-As-Stars, “When you are not like these rapturous Muggles who do my bidding, but instead seem poised to rise above me?”

"You are too enamored of those lesser than you, and not enough in love with your own kind," said Pure-As-Snow. "You must let me live. I am like you."

Pure-As-Stars said, “But I despise you. You are so much lovelier than I.”

"I am this way because I am your daughter, and the daughter of a worthy father _,”_  cried Pure-As-Snow.

"The mirror has shown me that you have more might and magic than I, being so beautiful," said Pure-As-Stars, "And you will replace me. Why, then, should I let you live?"

"Without me to replace you, there will be nothing but the ugly Muggles to inherit the world. The mirror has shown you what you covet most. Is that not, Mother, the chance to leave behind a child as pure and beautiful as yourself?"

And Pure-As-Stars saw that it was so, but there was chaos and jealousy in her mind which had been left there by all the praise these sightless Muggles had heaped upon her, seeking to gain her favor and her love. And she realized how wrong she was, and drank the poison brew herself, and her death caused a great plague to sweep the land which killed these obsequious beings, a fitting punishment.

And so Pure-As-Snow ruled over the land from that day forward, inviting clever and proper magical persons to live with her, and she locked the mirror away for many generations until one descendant of hers, who we will call Pure-As-Black, who as we know is not a made-up person but a distant ancestor of your father’s, should ship it with him to this country. Pure-As-Black hid the mirror in some secret place, remembering how it had made a mother love Muggles instead of her own perfect child, and charged every mother in our line with telling this story. And the mirror he called  _Eris_ , after discord, and those who fall prey to it are the  _Erised_.

So now you know. Yes, Bella darling, every last one of them was beautiful, with the shining dark hair of that distant land they cleansed of Muggles. Yes, Cissy darling, it  _is_  a tale of motherhood, the noblest occupation a witch can have. Oh, what’s that, my darling? You think it was silly of her to want to be lovely and perfect? You think that was the real problem? You feel sorry for the  _Muggles_? Oh, Andromeda Lyra Perpetua Black. You do have such fancies. 

(Honestly, Cygnus, I worry for her. She does seem to miss the point of the story.)


End file.
